Applications for School Year 2025-26 Are Now Open:
The Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity
METCO is a program funded by the state of Massachusetts to expand educational opportunities, increase diversity, and reduce racial isolation by permitting students from Boston to attend public schools in other communities that have agreed to participate.
METCO provides students with a strong academic foundation rich in cultural, educational, ethnic, socioeconomic, and racial diversity while creating opportunities for Boston and suburban children to develop a deeper understanding of each other in an integrated public school setting.
METCO strives to be a leader in voluntary school integration within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and across the nation to promote school diversity, close the achievement gap, and overcome racial barriers.
Since its founding during the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, the METCO program has enrolled tens of thousands of Boston students of color in predominantly white school districts, allowing students to experience the advantages of learning and working in a racially and ethnically diverse setting.
3,100
Families
190
Suburban Public Schools
96%
4-Year High School Graduation Rate
33
Participating Districts
ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
Yojaira Baez
Temporary Admin Assistant
Kristen Fumarola
Chief Development Officer
David Joutras
Special Projects
Cheryl Antoine
Executive Assistant, QHC
Co-Chair, METCO Parent Advisory Council
METCO Parent
Chuck Walker, Esq.
Former Board Chair;
Government Attorney (Ret.); Consultant; Adjunct Law Professor
Dr. Daniel Gutekanst
Treasurer
Superintendent,
Needham Public Schools
Darnell Billings
Board Chair
Real Estate Agent, Keller Williams
METCO alumnus
METCO Parent
Mabel Reid-Wallace
Board Vice Chair
President, M.E.G.R.O.W.
Educational Leadership Consultant
Marvin L. McIntyre
President / ImpresarioÂ
Marvelous Enterprises, LLC
METCO Alumnus
(Lexington High 1981)
Mary Ann Borkowski
Wayland Resident
Patrick Kimble
Asset Management, The Davis Companies; METCO alum
Inspired by her mother’s interest in civil rights, Batson became the chairwoman of the Public Education Sub-Committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1953. In April 1957, she became the chairwoman of the New England Regional Conference of the NAACP, where she worked as a civil rights lobbyist.
Jean McGuire (born 1931) is an American educator and civil rights leader. She was the first African American woman to be elected to a seat on the Boston School Committee in 1981, during the Boston busing desegregation era. She helped found the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity (METCO) in 1966 and served as its executive director from 1973 to 2016.
During her 43-year tenure, she was known as a fierce advocate for METCO students, who generally received better educational opportunity through their participation, but at times also faced racism, violence, and isolation in overwhelmingly white suburban spaces. McGuire also advocated for Black educators, calling for the need for racial and community representation at all levels.
History
The Metropolitan Council of Educational Opportunity is a coalition of local school districts, state government, and a non-profit organization joining together voluntarily, founded by diverse parents through grass-roots organizing. Generations of families, staff, and advocates have fought vigilantly, educated patiently, and persevered through countless struggles to get to this moment.
Today, we owe it to them—and to the people in Boston, suburban towns, and the state of Massachusetts who stand unified in support of METCO’s daring vision—to study this legacy, and honor it with our actions. We invite you to relive the courage, creativity, and dedication of the activists in this exhibit, and to imagine a future of METCO even more extraordinary than its past.
In the 1960s, the Boston School Committee was a stubborn opponent to Black community activists. In the face of growing protest, the elected group chaired by Louise Day Hicks denied that Boston Public Schools were segregated at all.
Outraged, Ruth Batson and her supporters took matters into their own hands. In December of 1965, Brookline’s School Committee Chair Dr. Leon Trilling, an MIT professor invited Ruth Batson to Brookline High School to consider a scheme to enroll Boston black children in open suburban seats. He and Batson hit the road for the next six months alongside NAACP leaders like Paul Parks, securing commitments from six other towns: Arlington and Lexington to the north, Braintree to the south, and Lincoln and Wellesley joining Newton and Brookline on the west.
Just as Ruth Batson became METCO’s executive director in 1968, racial tension in America escalated. Non-violent civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr. was murdered, and the Black community in Boston and across the country faced grave doubts about the viability of integration. The suburbs voted with their actions—the number of METCO partners doubled again from 14 to 28.
METCO buses continued to ride to the suburbs under Jean McGuire’s steady decades-long stewardship.
In 2018, a new generation took the helm of METCO, Inc. with a social worker, community leader, and METCO parent Milly Arbaje-Thomas. With her operational expertise and optimistic vision, Milly worked to modernize the program for its participants and envision its role in the 21st century.
In the weeks following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, rallies and marches were organized from Brookline to Wellesley. Superintendents, METCO Directors, and School Committee members assembled in Hyde Park to make public statements of solidarity for the Black community and commit to adopting anti-racism resolutions in their districts.
